Far-right extremists saw Trump tweet as a ‘call to arms’ ahead of Jan. 6: committee
Global News
Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, who are now facing rare sedition charges, readily answered Donald Trump's rally invitation.
The Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday focused on ways violent far-right extremists answered Donald Trump’s tweet for a big Washington rally as a “call to arms,” as the panel probed whether they coordinated with White House allies in the deadly U.S. Capitol attack and effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol siege is delving into what it calls the final phase of Trump’s multi-pronged effort to halt Joe Biden’s victory.
As dozens of lawsuits and false claims of voter fraud fizzled, Trump met late into the night of Dec. 18 with attorneys at the White House before tweeting the rally invitation — “Be there, will be wild!” Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups who are now facing rare sedition charges readily answered.
“This tweet served as a call to action — and in some cases a call to arms.” said one panel member, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.
Tuesday’s hearing is the seventh for the Jan. 6 committee. Over the past month, the panel has created a narrative of a defeated Trump “detached from reality,” clinging to false claims of voter fraud and working feverishly to reverse his election defeat. It all culminated with the attack on the Capitol, the committee says.
The panel featured new video testimony from Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, recalling the explosive late-night meeting at the White House when Trump’s outside legal team brought a draft executive order to seize states’ voting machines — a “terrible idea,” he said.
“That’s not how we do things in the United States,” Cipollone testified.
Cipollone and other White House officials scrambled to intervene in the late-night meeting Trump was having with attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, retired national security aide Michael Flynn and the head of the online retail company Overstock. It erupted in shouting and screaming, another aide testified.